[HN Gopher] Ask HN: I've reached the crossroad - advice needed
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: I've reached the crossroad - advice needed
I've been a member of this site since 2016. I've always been
fascinated with technology, computers, and coding, since I was a
kid. I grew up and live in Los Angeles, playing classical piano,
songwriting, composing, and majored in music business. I've
managed a construction company, and I've been running my recording
studio for the last 15+ years since graduating from college. I've
produced numerous major label hip-hop artists from the Wu-Tang
Clan, to Rick Ross, to Nas. I've finally reached a crossroad. The
industry isn't as stable as it once was, and I'm looking to
transition my career. I'm 37M, newly married with no kids (yet)
and ready for some change. I've read HN daily for the last 5 years
and I'm looking for advice as I've read so many articles here and
comments upon comments of yours that have encouraged me to take the
leap. Throughout my professional music career, and since I was a
kid learning piano, I always built my own PCs, set up Linux servers
for fun, coded websites and tinkered away. The joy has always been
there. I've finally decided to ask you all here at HN what path I
should take if you were in my shoes. Currently I've been looking at
Google Certifications (UX/UI, Data Analyst, Project Manager) Is
that a route that would be suggested, or perhaps a different one? I
hope this post isn't too long, and I'm an open book. I really
appreciate any advice here as I am looking to reach the next phase
of growth, development, and challenges in my life. I'm capable,
determined, and very excited about this. Thank you to each and
every one of you.
Author : addajones
Score : 17 points
Date : 2022-05-04 15:27 UTC (7 hours ago)
| c22 wrote:
| Have some kids and become a stay at home dad. It's the most
| rewarding thing I've done yet.
| jonahbenton wrote:
| Congrats and best to you for reaching out. Two thoughts.
|
| I work with and have a good friend who followed similar
| trajectory- serious touring musician, show producer, etc for many
| years, now we work together in tech. He's a project manager. He's
| fantastic. Half of PMing is logistics and half is personalities.
| If you have produced, you have done both. The terminology in tech
| you will have to acquire- the artifacts/objects/roles, the
| process (agile/scrum/etc), and the tools (jira, github, etc).
| Whether you do that through self-teaching, classes,
| certifications depends on how you learn- but I suspect what will
| best is to find a way to shadow a team. You will learn more in a
| month from sitting in, asking questions, then following up with
| research than from any other activity. So if you have any friends
| in tech on whom you can impose yourself to let you listen in-
| highly, highly recommend doing that.
|
| Second point. There is a somewhat controversial movement in tech
| loosely known as "web3". If you have seen talk of "NFTs" or
| "crypto" these are adjacent. Some people hate it and attribute
| climate change, fraud and other evils to it. Others do not. If
| you are someone who would not, there is a burgeoning subfield
| impacting music. It is NOT stable, but there are lots of
| interesting and rewarding conversations for people whose
| experience spans the machinery both of music production and
| technology implementation.
|
| Best wishes again, seriously. Love your energy in reaching out
| and am sure things will go well for you.
| addajones wrote:
| Thanks so so much for your mentioning of PM tools used and
| sharing having a musician you work with who made a similar type
| of transition! That sounds like a very exciting path.
|
| Just like I did in my teen years shadowing in recording studios
| and learning the process start to finish, I won't be shy and go
| forward to shadow with teams in tech. I'll go through my
| contacts and see if I can find any tech-related contacts.
|
| Highly appreciated. Thanks again Jonah.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| Your experience seems more oriented to deciding what you want to
| do rather than being told what to do. Consider whether you want
| to get into coding what other people tell you to code, it can
| suck all the joy out of it.
| jarenmf wrote:
| I'm kind of in a similar situation, but instead of working I did
| a PhD in a field a bit far from computer science and eventually
| realized academia is not a place I want to stay in. Right now I'm
| thinking how to do the transition. I'm thinking of maybe doing
| data science, that way at least I can transfer some of the
| knowledge form my work in academia instead of starting from
| scratch but it is a difficult decision.
| addajones wrote:
| That sounds like a great idea. Data science seems to be a great
| way to go. I don't think I have the full-time to go back into
| academia which is why I'm looking at certifications and picking
| it up as I go along. Love working with people, that's about all
| I do in a recording studio. Enter the studio with nothing, and
| leave with fully produced and written songs.
| sharemywin wrote:
| Any one of those is a reasonable "stable" option. really a
| personal choice. Work on a personal project then look for an
| entry level job. Pay is irrelevant on your first job since it's a
| stepping stone. bust your ass for a year or two then look for a
| better paying job.
| addajones wrote:
| Thanks for responding, greatly appreciated!
| digisign wrote:
| There are quite a few entertainment-related tech and tech-
| adjacent companies in LA, from startups to Disney, that would
| probably be interested.
|
| You don't mention a degree, but without it will be difficult to
| get a job at most coveted positions. For example don't even
| bother applying at Netflix or SpaceX, you won't even get a no-
| thank-you in response.
|
| Also, with everything we learn that doing something for a living
| kinda takes the fun out of it. So setting expectations properly
| will be helpful as well.
| b20000 wrote:
| engineering is a career just like music. imagine you would want
| to make the reverse transition. would that make sense? it is not
| a get rich quick scheme or a solution to all problems.
| addajones wrote:
| Agree completely! Just seems more appealing with the sense of
| it continuously growing as the music industry consolidates in
| many ways.
| b20000 wrote:
| as long as you know what you are getting into ... :)
| cruano wrote:
| Maybe reach out to something like Splice [1]. It's still tech,
| but it's also related to the music industry, so you could
| leverage your experience.
|
| [1]https://worklife.splice.com
| joshstrange wrote:
| I've always found certifications to be a waste of time and money.
| There is a probably a sweet spot when they matter but it's
| fleeting and the companies selling you courses/certifications
| have zero interest in letting you the truth about how much it's
| "worth".
|
| If you have the skills to get an entry-level web development job
| then I'd suggest going to for that to get your foot in the door,
| work for 1-2 years, then look for something better paying. You'll
| also have a better idea of if you even like doing it
| professionally and/or what you want to "specialize" in. I'd also
| suggest staying away from larger companies (FAANG and the like),
| you will learn more at smaller company as you'll probably need to
| wear many "hats" which also gives you a good chance to see what
| you like (Is it DevOps? Frontend? Backend? PM? UI/UX? etc).
| addajones wrote:
| I'm self-taught in all that I've learned in tech, even in music
| production and audio engineering. I was thinking the Google
| certification would be beneficial because of their network of
| companies, and the entire tech industry is much more formal it
| seems compared to the hip-hop music industry which is like the
| Wild West to the tenth degree. I'm trying to learn a new skill,
| that's why I was perhaps thinking of a Certification, where I
| can still create music and run my studio as I gain the tech
| knowledge and confidence in a 6-month course and continue
| forward. Thank you
| joshstrange wrote:
| > compared to the hip-hop music industry which is like the
| Wild West to the tenth degree
|
| I feel like everyone (myself included) thinks "Oh, that
| company/industry has their shit together", spoiler: they
| don't. One lesson I have to keep reminding myself of and
| relearning is a large company (even successful ones) doesn't
| not immediately equate to knowing what they are doing.
| Imposter syndrome is a huge issue inside the tech industry, I
| imagine it's even worse for the people on the outside looking
| in.
|
| Maybe a part-time web development job would work for you? Get
| your feet wet without having to go full-time right away.
|
| My comments about certifications really boil down to "Don't
| expect a certification to result in a job or even better
| standing among other applicants". Being someone who is
| enjoyable to talk to/work with goes way further in my book.
| I'll take a "1x" programmer that's easy to work with over a
| "10x" that's a jerk or has no social skills. Also your "self-
| taught" skills are probably a lot better than you are giving
| yourself credit for. I'd bet money you would do better than
| the majority of new CS grads when it comes to actually
| producing.
| addajones wrote:
| We're exactly on the same page of thought. The
| certification for me, is more to just boost my confidence
| and direction moving forward.
|
| Looking into it, I 100% take my self-taught music skills
| and management for granted. Having had to work with all
| spectrums of artists from pop, hip-hop, male, female, young
| to old, the goal would always end up being how do we get
| this song completed to the best of our abilities and ready
| for worldwide release.
|
| It's a tedious process consisting of communicating and
| directing tons of people to achieve the unified goal even
| when they don't see it.
|
| I'm assuming in tech, there are similar environments like
| that.
| luhego wrote:
| You can try any free online bootcamp. Freecodecamp seems to be
| good for web development(JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc). Then, you
| can try building some side projects(maybe music related). Good
| luck!
| addajones wrote:
| Thanks I will take a look at Freecodecamp. Greatly appreciated.
| treis wrote:
| >I've been running my recording studio for the last 15+ years
| since graduating from college. I've produced numerous major label
| hip-hop artists from the Wu-Tang Clan, to Rick Ross, to Nas. I've
| finally reached a crossroad. The industry isn't as stable as it
| once was, and I'm looking to transition my career. Throughout my
| professional music career, and since I was a kid learning piano,
| I always built my own PCs, set up Linux servers for fun, coded
| websites and tinkered away. Do you have some time to chat about
| any opportunities you may have?
|
| ^ Send that to every music related tech company you come across.
| They'll pretty much all be interested at some level.
|
| Edit to add: Take a go at some leetcode problems. If you can do
| the easy ones & make a reasonable effort at medium then you're
| good enough to get hired. If not practice until you can.
| mooreds wrote:
| Agree with this. Tech is _everywhere_ so finding an edge with
| domain knowledge will make you standout compared to all the
| other folks looking to get into it with no professional
| experience.
|
| I'd suggest targeting a few companies a week and doing
| research. As a (former) hiring manager, it is so much more
| powerful for me to get a message like this:
|
| "I was reading your company blog post about the resurgence of
| vinyl. It was really interesting. I sold all my vinyl in the
| 2000s, but have noticed it coming back at my local record
| store.
|
| I also saw that <company> is using golang and typescript, based
| on your job descriptions. I've used golang and really enjoyed
| it; I found the abstraction of channels made it really easy to
| communicate between different components.
|
| I was interested in applying to your engineering team. I have a
| lot of music experience and some tech experience. My resume is
| attached. I'd love to chat if you are interested in seeing if
| there's a mutual fit."
|
| Than one like this:
|
| "I was looking at your site and thought you might like to hire
| me. Resume attached."
|
| Doing just the slightest bit of research (30 min) will, again,
| make you stand out in a sea of resumes. (Of course, a warm
| intro is even better; LinkedIn can help you find out if you
| know anyone who knows anyone.)
| addajones wrote:
| This is priceless. I value your input and examples. It's
| really helping me shape the direction I'll go in. Would you
| suggest I research the companies to determine what type of
| positions for coding they have?
|
| I'm still determining if I'll move forward with PM or picking
| a language to become proficient in.
|
| Thank you!!
| mooreds wrote:
| > Would you suggest I research the companies to determine
| what type of positions for coding they have?
|
| Definitely visit their jobs page to get a flavor of what
| they are looking for, but realize that it is not up to
| date; there may be positions on there that are no longer
| available and positions that are available that are no
| longer there.
|
| Also know that companies may not list junior/entry level
| positions because they get a flood of applicants when they
| do.
| addajones wrote:
| Thanks for this, that's a wonderful idea!
|
| Can you possibly expand a bit on leetcode problems? I'll
| definitely take a look if I just can get a direction where to
| look.
| treis wrote:
| https://leetcode.com/problemset/all/?difficulty=EASY&page=1
|
| Small programming challenges that companies use to gauge your
| coding ability.
|
| That's assuming you want to write code. If you want a
| different role then it's not needed.
| digisign wrote:
| I wouldn't recommend leetcode unless you are set on tech-
| first companies, entertainment co's generally aren't
| concerned except for the fact poor hiring practice has
| partially permeated broader industry tech culture.
|
| Better would be to study CS, IT, project-management, or
| job/industry-specific tasks you'd like to target. PBS crash-
| course computer science is a great way to soak some up in a
| jiffy.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| I recommend breaking up a large body of text into paragraphs for
| easier consumption.
|
| But also, certifications aren't bad but having a small project
| that you can apply what you learn to will give you a lot of
| confidence.
| addajones wrote:
| I updated the text, maybe lost my formatting when I pasted it
| from my notes app!
|
| A small project on my own is a common theme I'm noticing here.
| I will get into that once I decide which direction to take in
| tech.
|
| Thank you!
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| I would suggest parlaying your music industry experience into
| some kind of passion website that would allow you to utilize your
| former network for monetization.
|
| Maybe create a resource that highlights the physical studio that
| albums were recorded at. Feature obscure rap history or just
| review studio equipment. Reach out (same name on Twitter) if you
| wanna chat more.
| addajones wrote:
| Those are some good ideas, I will reach out to you on Twitter,
| thanks.
| smarri wrote:
| I'm a similar age and working full time in a commercial role (in
| technology) but now 1 year into a 3 year part time Masters in
| software development as I'd like to improve my technical skills.
| I decided it would be good to continue doing what I'm doing, but
| dedicate my spare time work on the thing that could bring about
| change. It may not be for you, and it's probably a slower path to
| change, but it keeps the options open. Wishing you good luck
| addajones!
| addajones wrote:
| Congrats on your path and your commitment! It's great to hear
| about it and wishing you good luck as well, thank you!
| tchock23 wrote:
| Consider checking out the 'no code' movement and learning a
| platform like Bubble.io. If you've tinkered with code before
| you'll have a leg up and there are tons of free resources to help
| you learn. Quite a few opportunities from there to turn it into
| six figure freelance or full time gigs, or continue the journey
| and become a full stack dev.
| addajones wrote:
| Thank you for the suggestion, I'll definitely take a look at
| Bubble.io. I've heard plenty about "no code" but I haven't
| looked at it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-04 23:01 UTC)